The No More Trumps Film Series

Overview

We can't do it alone. We need your help in implementing the research ideas presented here.

Our world has entered the crisis stage for solving its most important problem, climate change. With the election of Donald Trump and his subsequent actions to NOT solve the climate change problem, it's easy to conclude that there is no longer any rational hope the problem can be solved and that civilization is doomed, due to environmental collapse.

We at Thwink.org would like to offer an alternate conclusion, as embodied in these films.

The opening text crawl of Film 1 provides an overview of the film series. Bolding has been added so you can skim for the heart of the matter:

The flow of history has taken our world into troubling times. We are losing ground. Democracy itself begins to unravel under the onslaught of more problems than the system can solve.

The latest of these problems, the ascendency of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States, signals something has gone terribly wrong. Unless this situation is reversed humanity will be unable to solve its biggest problems, including climate change and war, and will suffer catastrophic decline.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

The tools for solving problems of any kind were invented long ago. But they were invented in the business world, a world far apart from public interest activism.

Since 2001 Thwink.org has been on a quest to explore the business world, find the right tools, and adapt them to fit the world’s biggest problems. Then activism will have the tool set it needs to solve these problems before they become permanently unsolvable.

This is a story of rational hope.

That last sentence says it all. The thwinkers at Thwink.org strongly feel that rational, evidence based analysis of the problem, using the right tools, will lead to solutions that have never been tried before in a focused, sustained, large-scale manner. As Film 1 explains, this begins with asking The Right Question.

Please note that these films are not anti-Trump. They are anti-authoritarian.

Outline of the Planned Film Series

A total of about 14 films are planned, averaging 30 to 50 minutes each. Currently only the first film is done.

Film 1. The Right Question

This summarizes the entire film series in the Star Wars like opening text crawl. The film then presents the basic problem to solve.

There’s not just one problem to solve, but a list of unsolved problems like poverty, war, and climate change. Going deeper, we find that the hate-based authoritarianism problem is the real problem to solve because it prevents solution of all the other unsolved problems. How can we best solve that problem? The same way scientists do, by asking the right question, at the deepest and most universal level possible. The right question is “WHY is modern activism able to solve some problems and not others?” This question is where the next film begins.

The Right Tools - Films 2 to 4

Film 2. The First Tool - Root Cause Analysis

WHY is modern activism able to solve some problems and not others? Because activists are not using the right tools.

To solve the unsolved problems like war, poverty, and climate change, social science needs the right foundation. It appears that three tools are the minumum tools needed for a foundation complete enough to solve the unsolved problems. The tools are:

1. Root Cause Analysis

2. Process Driven Problem Solving

3. Model Driven Analysis

Films 2, 3, and 4 present the tools.

Let's look at the first tool, root cause analysis. Popular solutions are not analytically designed to resolve root causes. Instead, they are intuitively designed to solve the "obvious" causes. The diagram explains how the obvious causes are intermediate causes, which makes popular solutions superficial. The result is solutions for difficult problems like climate change have little or no effect.

Activists have made tremendous progress on the solved problems, like slavery and women's suffrage. But until they begin using the powerful tool of root cause analysis, they will be unable to penetrate to the fundamental layer of difficult problems, where the root cause lie.

Film 3. The Second Tool - Process Driven Problem Solving

The right process will lead to the right results. The right process is so essential to solving difficult problems that all of science depends on a single process, the Scientific Method, to guide its work. For more on the power of the right process see the glossary for Process Driven Problem Solving.

Film 4. The Third Tool - Model Based Analysis

Social systems are composed of independent social agents connected by feedback loops. The behavior of all social systems arises from the structure of its key feedback loops. The First Law of Modeling states that "If you don't understand a system's key feedback loops, then you don't understand the system." For more see the glossary for Model Based Analysis.

Analysis Results - Films 5 to 9

Film 5. The Broken Political System Problem

We're solving the overall sustainability problem. This includes all three pillars of sustainability: environmental, economic, and social. To make analysis possible, the one big problem was decomposed into six smaller and easier to solve subproblems:

As the analysis proceeded, we made a surprising discovery, one we never expected when we started. The world's biggest problem is not climate change or the deeper problem of hate-based authoritarinism. Our research discovered that these problems, along with all the other unsolved problems, are symptoms of an even deeper problem: The Broken Political System Problem. Solve that problem and the system will automatically want to solve all the unsolved problems, because that's in the best interest of the common good.

Films 6 to 9 present analysis results for subproblems A to D. Subproblems E and F are beyond the scope of our analysis, which is of little concern since they will tend to be automatically solved once the root causes of the Broken Political System Problem are resolved.

Film 6. The Brick Wall of Change Resistance

Change resistance is the tendency for something to resist change even when a surprisingly large amount of force is applied. Change resistance plays a critical role in solving difficult social problems, due to a striking pattern.

In the solved problems systemic change resistance was low. In the unsolved problems change resistance is high. That's why popular solutions like civil disobedience, lobbying, and publicity campaigns worked on the solved problems. But these solution fail on problems with high systemic change resistance, because they do not resolve the root causes. Instead, they attenpt (in vain) to resolve intermediate causes.

The good news is that by applying the right three tools, the brick wall of change resistance can be knocked down fairly permanently. For more see Subproblem A.

Film 7. Corporatis profitis versus Homo sapiens

If you follow the trail of influence, large for-profit corporation are dominating political decision making destructively. They are the power behind efforts to NOT solve common good problems like climate change, large recessions, war, and so on. Why is this?

Consider the Principle of Social System Goals: Over time, the goal of the dominant agent in a social system becomes the goal of the system. Next consider that the dominant agent in the human system is no longer Homo sapiens. It is Corporatis profitis, the modern large for-profit corporation.

Thus the goal of Corporatis profitis, short term maximization of profits, has become the implicit goal of the human system. As long as that's the system's goal, the system will tend to NOT solve any problem that conflicts with that goal, such as climate change, because that's a long term problem. The system is behaving exactly as you would expect, given the Principle of Social System Goals. For more see Subproblem B.

Film 8 – Who Will Watch the Watchers?

"Who will watch the watchers?" comes from the Roman poet Juvenal, who asked a slightly different version: "Who will guard the guards themselves?" Goverments need watchers to insure that those in positions of power don't fall into the perrenial trap of making poorer and poorer decisions, whether due to corruption, lack of relevant skills, laziness, obsolescence, etc. This is the age old problem of creeping government ineptness. The analysis calls this "failure to correct failing solutions when they first start failing."

But what if the watchers themselves go inept? Who will watch them? And who will watch the watchers watching the watchers? It’s an endless recursion with no end and hence no answer. This implies the initial question is flawed. WHY is it flawed?

It turns out that the original question is fallacious. "Who will watch the watchers?" makes the false assumption that the only solution is watchers. But with the right tools, more solutions can be found. Finding these solutions requires first finding the root cause of why government decision makers so often go astray. For more see Subproblem C.

Film 9 – Managing the World’s Common Property

The environmental sustainability problem is best framed as how to avoid collapse of the world’s common property. Common property is anything that's shared in common and not treated as private property, such as the air we breathe, the freshwater cycle, and where a lot of chemical pollution goes. Impact on common property is currently unsustainable. For more see Subproblem D.

Sample Solution Elements - Films 10 to 13

Film 10 – Solutions for Raising Truth Literacy

The root cause of high systemic change resistance is low truth literacy. If that's the root cause, the high leverage point is obvious: raise truth literacy. Nine solution elements for doing that are presented. The foundational solution element is Freedom from Falsehood. For an overview of these see Solutions for Subproblem A.

Film 11 – Moving from Corporation 1.0 to 2.0

The symptoms of subproblem B are large for-profit corporation are dominating political decision making destructively. The root cause is mutually exclusive goals between the top two life forms in the human system, Corporatis profitis and Homo sapiens. To resolve the root cause, the goals must be aligned so that they are in agreement.

The goal of Homo sapiens is the long term optimizaiton of quality of life for all those living and their descendents. We probably don't want to change that goal. On the other hand, the goal of Corporatis profitis is the short term maximization of profit. We probably want to change that goal, because there's no way we can solve the climate change problem and the other unsolved problems as long as that's the implicit goal of the system. One possible solution is Corporation 2.0.

Corporations were never designed in a comprehensive manner to serve The People. They evolved. What we have today can be called Corporation 1.0. It serves itself. What we need instead is Corporation 2.0. This life form is designed to serve people rather than itself. Its new role will be that of a trusted servant whose goal is providing the goods and services needed to optimize quality of life for people in a sustainable manner. For more see the Solution for Subproblem B.

Film 12 – Politician Decision Ratings

As discussed in Film 8, "Who will watch the watchers?" makes the false assumption that the only solution to avoiding creeping government ineptness is watchers. But with the right tools, more solutions can be found.

The analysis found that the root cause of of creeping government ineptness (failure to correct failing solutions when they first start failing) is low quality of political decisions. One solution to resolving this root cause is Politician Decision Ratings. Tthe solution changes the system by adding an explicit feedback loop which puts government leaders on a Race to the Top to see who can make the best decisions for the long term good of all. There are no watchers. They have been replaced by the self-motivating forces of the right feedback loops. For more see the Solution for Subproblem C.

Film 13 – Common Property Rights

The root cause of inability to manage the world's common property sustainably appears to be high transaction costs for managing common property sustainably. This means that it costs so much to set up a system for managing common property problems that it's prohibitivelyl expensive. It costs more that activists have.

Identification of the root cause is pretty good news, because it makes the high leverage point obvious. The high leverage point for resolving the root cause is allow firms to appear to lower the transaction costs for managing common property sustainably. This can be done by introducing Common Property Rights. These are the mirror image of the system used for today's Private Property Rights, so most of the infrastructure for implementing Common Property Rights already exists. For more see the Solution for Subproblem D.

Our Vision - Film 14

Film 14 - Engineering a Permanent Race to the Top

Going all the way back to Plato's The Republic in 380 BC and running through H. G. Wells' A Modern Utopia in 1905 to an explosion of literature on the subject in the 20th century, activists have long sensed that a social utopia of some kind is possible. However, past attempts have never worked for long, like intentional communities, religious utopias, and the scientific socialism of Marxism. Is a social utopia possible?

That depends on how one defines "utopia." Suppose it's not defined in the normal manner, by describing what people would do in such a world. Instead, suppose it's defined structurally, as a dominant Race to the Top among Politicians in the Dueling Loops model for several centuries straight. That's never happened for long, certainly never for more than the brief period a benevolent politician, party, or dynasty has been in control. And it's never come close to happening globally for all countries.

But suppose it did. Suppose the analysis presented here is reasonably sound and the four indentified root causes are resolved. That would set the stage for a long term dominant Race to the Top in the world's political systems. What would it bring? We can't say exactly, except that it would probably solve all the unsolved problems listed in Film 1. It would also solve future problem we've not yet encountered while they were still very small and solvable, such as robots trying to take over or terrorists inventing a whole new form of terror. Going even further, it would also spot new opportunities for improving the common good. Most of these are inconceivable today, just as so much of what we enjoy today was inconceivable 200 years ago.

It's a tantalizing vision. And based on the analysis, the thwinkers at Thwink.org see it as realistically possible, but only if modern activism switches to the right tools. If you can help make that happen or know someone who can, please, please, please contact us. We can't implement these ideas alone.

The analysis was performed over a seven year period from 2003 to 2010. The results are summarized in the Summary of Analysis Results, the top of which is shown below:

Click on the table for the full table and a high level discussion of analysis results.

The Universal Causal Chain

This is the solution causal chain present in all problems. Popular approaches to solving the sustainability problem see only what's obvious: the black arrows. This leads to using superficial solutions to push on low leverage points to resolve intermediate causes.

Popular solutions are superficial because they fail to see into the fundamental layer, where the complete causal chain runs to root causes. It's an easy trap to fall into because it intuitively seems that popular solutions like renewable energy and strong regulations should solve the sustainability problem. But they can't, because they don't resolve the root causes.

In the analytical approach, root cause analysis penetrates the fundamental layer to find the well hidden red arrow. Further analysis finds the blue arrow.Fundamental solution elements are then developed to create the green arrow which solves the problem. For more see Causal Chain in the glossary.

This is no different from what the ancient Romans did. It’s a strategy of divide and conquer. Subproblems like these are several orders of magnitude easier to solve because you are no longer trying (in vain) to solve them simultaneously without realizing it. This strategy has changed millions of other problems from insolvable to solvable, so it should work here too.

For example, multiplying 222 times 222 in your head is for most of us impossible. But doing it on paper, decomposing the problem into nine cases of 2 times 2 and then adding up the results, changes the problem from insolvable to solvable.

Change resistance is the tendency for a system to resist change even when a surprisingly large amount of force is applied.

Overcoming change resistance is the crux of the problem, because if the system is resisting change then none of the other subproblems are solvable. Therefore this subproblem must be solved first. Until it is solved, effort to solve the other three subproblems is largely wasted effort.

The root cause of successful change resistance appears to be effective deception in the political powerplace. Too many voters and politicians are being deceived into thinking sustainability is a low priority and need not be solved now.

The high leverage point for resolving the root cause is to raise general ability to detect political deception. We need to inoculate people against deceptive false memes because once people are infected by falsehoods, it’s very hard to change their minds to see the truth.

Life form improper coupling occurs when two social life forms are not working together in harmony.

In the sustainability problem, large for-profit corporations are not cooperating smoothly with people. Instead, too many corporations are dominating political decision making to their own advantage, as shown by their strenuous opposition to solving the environmental sustainability problem.

The root cause appears to be mutually exclusive goals. The goal of the corporate life form is maximization of profits, while the goal of the human life form is optimization of quality of life, for those living and their descendents. These two goals cannot be both achieved in the same system. One side will win and the other side will lose. Guess which side is losing?

The high leverage point for resolving the root cause follows easily. If the root cause is corporations have the wrong goal, then the high leverage point is to reengineer the modern corporation to have the right goal.

The world’s solution model for solving important problems like sustainability, recurring wars, recurring recessions, excessive economic inequality, and institutional poverty has drifted so far it’s unable to solve the problem.

The root cause appears to be low quality of governmental political decisions. Various steps in the decision making process are not working properly, resulting in inability to proactively solve many difficult problems.

This indicates low decision making process maturity. The high leverage point for resolving the root cause is to raise the maturity of the political decision making process.

In the environmental proper coupling subproblem the world’s economic system is improperly coupled to the environment. Environmental impact from economic system growth has exceeded the capacity of the environment to recycle that impact.

This subproblem is what the world sees as the problem to solve. The analysis shows that to be a false assumption, however. The change resistance subproblem must be solved first.

The root cause appears to be high transaction costs for managing common property (like the air we breath). This means that presently there is no way to manage common property efficiently enough to do it sustainably.

The high leverage point for resolving the root cause is to allow new types of social agents (such as new types of corporations) to appear, in order to radically lower transaction costs.

Solutions

There must be a reason popular solutions are not working.

Given the principle that all problems arise from their root causes, the reason popular solutions are not working (after over 40 years of millions of people trying) is popular solutions do not resolve root causes.

This is Thwink.org’s most fundamental insight.

Summary of Solution Elements

Using the results of the analysis as input, 12 solutions elements were developed. Each resolves a specific root cause and thus solves one of the four subproblems, as shown below:

Click on the table for a high level discussion of the solution elements and to learn how you can hit the bullseye.

The 4 Subproblems

The solutions you are about to see differ radically from popular solutions, because each resolves a specific root cause for a single subproblem. The right subproblems were found earlier in the analysis step, which decomposed the one big Gordian Knot of a problem into The Four Subproblems of the Sustainability Problem.

Everything changes with a root cause resolution approach. You are no longer firing away at a target you can’t see. Once the analysis builds a model of the problem and finds the root causes and their high leverage points, solutions are developed to push on the leverage points.

Because each solution is aimed at resolving a specific known root cause, you can't miss. You hit the bullseye every time. It's like shooting at a target ten feet away. The bullseye is the root cause. That's why Root Cause Analysis is so fantastically powerful.

The high leverage point for overcoming change resistance is to raise general ability to detect political deception. We have to somehow make people truth literate so they can’t be fooled so easily by deceptive politicians.

This will not be easy. Overcoming change resistance is the crux of the problem and must be solved first, so it takes nine solution elements to solve this subproblem. The first is the key to it all.

B. How to Achieve Life Form Proper Coupling

In this subproblem the analysis found that two social life forms, large for-profit corporations and people, have conflicting goals. The high leverage point is correctness of goals for artificial life forms. Since the one causing the problem right now is Corporatis profitis, this means we have to reengineer the modern corporation to have the right goal.

Corporations were never designed in a comprehensive manner to serve the people. They evolved. What we have today can be called Corporation 1.0. It serves itself. What we need instead is Corporation 2.0. This life form is designed to serve people rather than itself. Its new role will be that of a trusted servant whose goal is providing the goods and services needed to optimize quality of life for people in a sustainable manner.

What’s drifted too far is the decision making model that governments use to decide what to do. It’s incapable of solving the sustainability problem.

The high leverage point is to greatly improve the maturity of the political decision making process. Like Corporation 1.0, the process was never designed. It evolved. It’s thus not quite what we want.

The solution works like this: Imagine what it would be like if politicians were rated on the quality of their decisions. They would start competing to see who could improve quality of life and the common good the most. That would lead to the most pleasant Race to the Top the world has ever seen.

Presently the world’s economic system is improperly coupled to the environment. The high leverage point is allow new types of social agents to appear to radically reduce the cost of managing the sustainability problem.

This can be done with non-profit stewardship corporations. Each steward would have the goal of sustainably managing some portion of the sustainability problem. Like the way corporations charge prices for their goods and services, stewards would charge fees for ecosystem service use. The income goes to solving the problem.

Corporations gave us the Industrial Revolution. That revolution is incomplete until stewards give us the Sustainability Revolution.

This analyzes the world’s standard political system and explains why it’s operating for the benefit of special interests instead of the common good. Several sample solutions are presented to help get you thwinking.

Note how generic most of the tools/concepts are. They apply to far more than the sustainability problem. Thus the glossary is really The Problem Solver's Guide to Difficult Social System Problems, using the sustainability problem as a running example.